


What Dreams May Come

by squire



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, post-tab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5685979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock dreams during his overdose. </p><p>A year later, John still finds sleeping difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Dreams May Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ariane_DeVere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariane_DeVere/gifts).



The plane rolls to a halt. They expect Sherlock to stride out in a parade of triumph.

Mycroft is the first whose eyes narrow when the door stays closed one second too long. John doesn't remember ever seeing the elder Holmes moving so fast.  

John wrenches his arm out of Mary's hold and follows up. The boarding steps shake under his footfalls. His hand trembles where it holds onto the guardrail.  

Sherlock still stares out of the window, his phone cradled in lax fingers. His skin is a luxurious cream colour, the exact shade of the upholstery. His eyes are translucent blue and wide black. There is still something guarded about his face, even now.

A crack of something unguarded, something terrible, flashes across Mycroft's face. "This is my fault." He crumples a sheet of paper in his hand.

Behind John, Mary lets out a single sob. What does she mourn - Sherlock's loss, or her own? For this is the end - John only took her back because Sherlock insisted. Making him happy by making John happy. The Watsons' ever after, Sherlock's six months. Or four minutes. But now, the promise is empty.

Just like John's whole world.

Sherlock Holmes, the genius, the addict, the best man, the best friend, the detective, the murderer - has died five days before his thirty-sixth birthday.  

 

*

 

"Wake up, John."

He does. Pinprick black and translucent blue turned green in the soft light of the bedside lamp stare back at him. "You were... distressed."

John lets his head fall back into the pillows. Only a dream. In the real world, Sherlock had solved Moriarty's return, convicted Mary as his right hand, and offhandedly deduced the identity of Amelia's real father. It had been a bit of shock - to un-become a father just as quickly as he'd become one, with nothing more than one deduction too many - but John had taken it in stride. He'd held onto false dreams for too long anyway.

Sherlock had waited exactly six months to ask John out. "Propriety," he had said. As if John cared for propriety when he wanted to jump Sherlock the moment he got out of the plane.

"Nightmare..."

Sherlock is silent. In Sherlock-speak, it's an admission of guilt. He knows what plagues John's dreams, of course he does.

"Stop it, you. I always have them after champagne."

Long arms wrap around John's middle. "For our next anniversary, I'll tell Mycroft to bring whisky."

Slowly, slowly, John eases back to sleep. Hopefully his next dream won't be one out of the bottom of a champagne bottle.

It's been one year from one man's return and another's new beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed and a title a quote from Shakespeare. Apparently, I am letting things slide. Who carrrrrrres.
> 
> I haven't had the time/will/courage to watch the Special, yet. So this particular plotbunny owes its existence to a couple of gifs on Tumblr and my own exceptionally bad dreams.
> 
> Dedicated to Ariane DeVere as a thank you for her brilliant transcripts. 
> 
> (Reposted instead of an earlier version that was, in my eyes, rather underdone. PS: it's been double-221B in my Word document. Dunno why it isn't here.)


End file.
